


Can't Keep Up

by Electric_Revenge (shoot_up_perfume)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, I'm Bad At Tagging, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki meets his match, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character(s), POC OC, Superpower Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 11:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13410069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoot_up_perfume/pseuds/Electric_Revenge
Summary: Twenty, divorced, on the verge of being fired and a bank account draining faster than a bathtub...Teddy's life is complicated.A former girl wonder who left a promising place at a prestigious private school after falling in love at fifteen and running away with a dream of a gossamer filled future in her eyes. The last thing Teddy expected after marrying into old money was to be signing divorce papers, scraping to make the payments for her utility bills and jumping turnstiles for free fare five years later.So when an accident at her job gets her fired and leaves her with inexplicable powers she has nothing left to lose and a seemingly new lease on life.Then along came Loki.---UPDATED WEEKLYI claim no rights to Marvel, the MCU or any of Disney or Marvel's characters.I do however have full ownership over my original characters and the original machinations.





	1. Prologue

         

 

There was the jingling of chains and the sound of two footsteps muffling the soft padding of feet on the packed earth, slower, inentionally lagging behind and there was a pause in the steps.  
The woman dressed only in an orange jumpsuit and shackles snickered under her breath. Of the two guards escorting her, the male and the female, it was the woman who broke first. Her thin patience finally wearing thing enough to snap from four days of abrasion.

"Alright, that's it. Do you ever want to get your ass out of here again? Then behave. Do you think anyone but you finds this shit funny? You're not being smart, you're not being cute, no one wants to hear it. Didn't you're mother tell you not to say anything nice, don't say anything at all?" There was something akin to authority emanating from her. Yet the longer she spoke it quickly became clear she was better at lecturing people like a schoolteacher than she was at being a scary force to be reckoned with.  
Especially since the prisoner she was attempting to reprimand had mentally labeled her Thing One and her partner Thing Two days ago and only imagined a Doctor Seuss character telling her to pull her life together.

With a blank stare, an air of inscolence and a dry smile she turned her amber eyes toward the woman. "A computer told me I'm adopted." The eyes narrowed with her sarcastic tone, the amusement in them growing bolder as she continued, "and the mother who raised me said, 'marry for the cheques, not for the pecs... I don't tell you how to do your job, don't tell me how to do mine." The same expression remaining fixed on her face she turned her eyes to the LED light floor ahead of them, effectively ending the conversation yet still dragging her feet.

While she might have spent the last four days locked up in a room with only a cot, a toilet and a sink she was far from immortal and someone had to bring her food. So she had to take her entertainment where she could find it and she certainly hadn't missed a beat to make the life of the guard assigned to bringing her meal tray absolute Hell.  
Having two people escorting her simply made for a field day.

As they came to the end of the hallway there was only two meters of flat, unadorned, door-free wall straight in front of them.

Thing Two was unable to control himself and let out a sound like a scoff, clearly not understanding exactly what the catch was and Thing One tried to hide her confusion behind a serious expression as she sternly examined the wall.

"What are both you new?" The prisoner asked, amusement coloring her voice again. She had been in there for four days with little to keep her amused her standards for entertainment had quickly dropped.  
However both guards made a point of ignoring her, the woman waving her and making some gesture she should be silent.

Fortunately two steely security guards being bemused by their own system was amusing just about anywhere and it took only ten seconds of them searching for the woman in orange to start laughing. Softly at first in some attempt to hide her derision but as the second ticked away and they became further and further from finding the location of the entryway she became louder.

It wasn't until she was nearly collapsing on the floor that the woman finally reacted. Putting her hands on her hips in some semblance of a serious pose and attempting to stare the prisoner down. "And what are you laughing about?" She demanded, jutting her chin forward in an act of superiority.

Finally the woman in orange stopped, reaching up to her face with her manacled hands and wiping away fake tears as a few chuckles escaped. "Oh man, no wonder Loki thought he could wander in here and declare himself High Wizard. You're idiots." Their faces significantly changed in response.

In the past few days since the attack on New York Loki's name had became something akin to a curse. The news was still adding to the talley of people killed and injured during the alien invasion and there was already talk of Tony Stark personally funding a memorial sculpture for the victims. For her to have said it so casually nearly made them gasp.

Immediately the female guard scowled, turning around and placing her hands on her hips. "If your tone does not make a quick change you'll be esco-" The prisoner rolled her eyes and made a sound like a horse snorting as the woman spoke, making her stop mid-sentence with an appalled expression when she was so casually dismissed.

"Meh-meh-meh," the woman in orange mocked the guard, no worry about the threat of punishment on her face, "yeah whatever, the people who want me to stay locked up in here go so far over your head if they were water, you'd drown. So I'm going to disregard everything you just said." Crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the wall her brows went up as she waited for a response.

The hallway was so quiet if there had been crickets loose, you would have heard them.

Scoffing at their silence the prisoner stood a little straighter, a faint smirk on her lips. "That's what I thought. Okay dummies, both of you hold your shiny ID's out to the wall." Begrudgingly they followed her instructions, holding their ID cards out at the blanks wall. "And now say 'open sesame'." The female guard turned to look at her with a glare, clearly doubting her, the woman in orange shrugged, "seriously, it's SHIELD's stupid protocol to come up with crap like this." Clearly hesitating the guards turned back to face there wall, the female guard clearing her threat and shifting uncomfortably. Clearly she hadn't seen this as a part of the job.

"Open sesame." As soon as the words left the guard's mouths the prisoner cracked, nearly doubling over laughing.

There was a faint hiss as the wall slid away, completely opening the corridor to reveal a round room beyond and in the middle, a lone figure with arms crossed waiting to meet her.  
And for the first time ever, she choked on her laughter.


	2. -Stone, T. ID:17891, Session 1, Recording 1, DATE: 24/05/2012-

As soon as she caught a breath she froze, her stare turning hard and a guarded energy surrounding her body. Like it was nothing but pure reflex her hand went to the base of her throat, clutching for something that had been stripped off her along with any other personal item.

Her yoga pants, knee pads, sports singlet and leather jacket had been traded in for starched underwear, the ugliest bra she had seen in her life, a jumpsuit that made her feel like she was locked in a federal prison and starched canvas slip-ons. It was a fashion nightmare.  
But the worst part had been having her really personal things taken, the engagement ring she kept when her marriage ended, the pendant she always wore.

Snatched away like a child being punished for throwing a temper tantrum.

So it was little wonder to anyone in the room when she acted to the billionaire playboy philanthropist standing on the other side of a bolted to the floor metal table like a dog her hackles raised. The last time they had been face to face they hadn't been on the best terms and the still healing burn nearly the size of her palm on her shoulder made it difficult to feel particularly amiable.

Not predicting it and unable to react fast enough she felt a shove on her back as she was pushed into the round room by the guards escorting her and she was only able to snap around in time for the door to hiss shut.

No escape.

Letting out a loud and deep sigh she turned around, resigning herself to her fate in a grin and bear sort of way. "Tony Stark, to what do I owe this grand pleasure? In a big white room like this? Why it's almost like they want a cage match," she began, a forced and sickeningly cordial smile remained plastered across her face as she spoke while her eyes surveyed the room and the man in front of her. "You know, I do believe this is first time we've been in a room for longer than ten seconds and you haven't tried to kill me. This could be interesting." 

Tony remained in the same pose for a moment, arms crosses, brow creased in a frown as he evaluating her the same way she had just evaluated him. Clearly not finding what he was looking for he turned his gaze to the table and pulled out a chair, taking a seat as he began. "I'm not here to chat. They figured you'd be more likely to talk to me than anyone else and well, I'm not gonna lie I really want to hear the your logic behind all this." The last remark only made the woman snigger.

"Well the best part is, I'm not gonna talk, so you don't have to." Her voice was mockingly upbeat, the same tone she went out of her way to use for the strict purposes of annoying the guards charged with keeping an eye on her.

More than used to playing the torment the staff game Tony let out a little laugh of his own. "You've been in here for two days and you're already going nuts. I can see it, you can feel it. You want out and you've given everyone maybe one or two reasons to consider it. But SHIELD has records to fill, policemen to bribe and I'm still more unconvinced than anyone that there is any good reason to believe a single word out of your mouth." The smile that had been sitting easily on her face only seconds earlier momentarily slipped, rage showing beneath it before being quickly covered once again.

"Oh yes, because spending the rest of my life locked up in this bleached, starched hellhole seems delightful." Her eyes flitted over the room as she spoke. With the exception of the two figures arguing they only other colorful objects on the entire room was the cameras they'd thought they'd successfully hidden. Everything else was crisp, clean white. Hospital white, looney bin white, republican gathering on Fourth of July white. Finally she held out her hands, pointedly looking between the man at the table and her manacled wrists. "Can I get out of these first? I think we both know you've got a slight advantage despite the old man thing."

"Why? It was you who said you're the new Houdini. You shouldn't need my help." She didn't appreciate the sarcasm.

"I am," she told him, dropping her wrists back down by her sides. "However these are programmed to shock me if I try. So would you rather take these off me now or would you prefer to wait until I've been knocked out for twenty minutes and wake up again?" The deadness in her face said it didn't bother her either way, a nap was a nap and freedom was freedom. She'd take whatever she could in their limited doses.

Barely needing to move from his metal chair Tony leant back, sliding his hand into his pocket and retrieving something that resembled a car key. With a soft beep from her manacles that made her feel a little like a car being unlocked via remote they released the locks and dropped to the ground in a pile around her feet.

Letting out a sigh of relief she stretched her arms above her head and stepped forward, entering a high lunge pose. 

It was the first time she'd had the shackles off in two days thanks to the unwillingness of everyone responsible for holding her to risk taking the shock cuffs off. It didn't really make much a difference anyway, even without the cuffs she knew she'd be lucky to be able to make it to the other side of the room.

But she wasn't going to let everyone else know that.

Finally standing upright she rolled her shoulders, gave her first genuine smile in days and made her way to he middle of the room before pulling out a chair and taking a seat. "Now we're cooking with gas," she told him, leaning forward and putting her elbows on the table, "so just what do you want to know?" 

Reaching down to retrieve a knapsack from beside the table he reached in before retrieving a Stark Industries tablet and he tapped on the screen for a few seconds before finding what he wanted. "Let's begin with a name. I'm sure you remember the raid on your apartment, but as you also know, every single thing there was addressed to a fake ID."

Her head titled as she thought upon the request, trying to decide just how deep she was willing to dig herself in the possibility it might actually save her. "Teddy Stone," she finally divulged, coming to the conclusion that if she wasn't already able to get herself out then she was likely going to be in the bunker for good. So in for the penny, in for the pound. "Theodora Stone technically. But the people who don't want to make me kill them usually call me Teddy," she added with a casual shrug.

Tony's fingers tapped away and the tablet screen, "birthday?" 

A thoughtful expression crossed her face when she didn't immediately reply and her lips pressed together into a flat line. "...I don't know." 

At her response Tony looked up from screen in his hands, his frown reappearing. However this time confused rather than irritated. "How can you not know?"

Teddy's jaw clenched and her eyes went to the floor and for a moment, the room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. "I was adopted. The woman who had me didn't put me up because she didn't want me, I was found outside the nightclub my mom was working at and she insisted she adopt me. I don't know, because literally no one knows my birthday. I was born in ninety-one, just put that down." The explanation was so unexpected and abrupt there for a second neither of them had a clue what to say next.

"That sucks," he muttered to himself and one of her brows quirked up upon hearing the remark. Clearing his threat and putting what he could into the database Tony looked up once more, "the name of your adoptive parents?"

"Randall and Bridget Stone." She answered without hesitation this time, thinking nothing of dragging both parents into the fray then suddenly remembering the drama they would cause if present "You're not going to call them are you?" Showing the first actual display of what was supposed to be a trademark personality since she stepped into the room, Tony snorted.

"What do I look like to you, a middle school principal? Besides, you're adopted so that automatically rules out being able to search for genetic causes. The nerds listening in the walls will scrounge up some details and crunch the numbers but it's no big deal as long as you're willing to keep talking. Why don't you get started on how you ended up here?"

"It's not very exciting."

"Is any origin story?"

Releasing a smile she rested her chin in her hands as she stared at the billionaire, unblinking. "According to what I've heard the arc reactor in your chest that powers your suit also keeps shrapnel fragments from shredding our heart to pieces. Sounds way more interesting to me." It was obvious to the both of them that her knowledge of the precise nature of the glowing piece of metal in his chest was uncommon and not particularly welcome by the way he shifted suddenly to in his chair.  
Teddy kept s,o.omg, every tactic was fair in war and well, it just never seemed fair that he knew everything about her with a couple of strokes of a keyboard and she knew nothing about any of the people holding her prisoner.

"What happened to you then?"

"Short story? I smashed an urn." When her wisecrack didn't earn her a laugh Teddy sighed before leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms and putting her legs up on the metal table, resting one ankle on top of the other. "Look, angry Gandalf did a number on the city. Are you sure you haven't got better things to do?"

As if she had reminded him of something Tony retrieved a phone from his pocket, sleeker and far fancier looking than anything she had seen on the market and briefly question passed through her mind whether he had made it himself. Probably.

"Cleanup is already at optimum efficiency, at this rate New York will be cleared and nearly all the necessary repairs will be completed before you've finished your story. Get going and there might be some pizza or Chinese in it for you a little later." Having been reluctant to eat anything since being locked up Teddy's stomach audibly growled at the mention of pizza and Tony smiled, "we figured with your powers the whole waterboarding thing was out."

It didn't take her long to mull over her answer, she only had to pretend to be thinking about it to show she wouldn't cave so easily.  
In truth Teddy had long ago resigned herself to the likelihood she would have to play nice to get herself out of the bunker.

Finally releasing a dramatic sigh she uncrossed her arms and moved on to cracking her knuckles as she spoke. "Alright, I'll bite. But you want to know why I was Loki, you have to know why I got in the game in the first place and it doesn't start the moment we met or when I got my powers. I like to think I'm a little deeper than that. I suppose the best place to start is when..."


	3. the woes of life

' _I just ended a four-year marriage_.'

Taking a deep breath as the reality sunk in and I set the pet carrier down on the wooden floor before swinging the front door shut behind me.

_My life as I knew it is over._   
_Jared's gone, Lila, the luxury car, the big apartment, the wardrobe full of clothes._   
_My family is gone for good._

Snapping me out of my reverie Buffy yowled at me from her carrier and checking to make sure I locked the door behind me I crouched down to let her out.  
The black sphynx timidly took a moment to poke her head out of the cage, taking in her new barren surroundings and beginning back into the cage once more. She was taking this about as well as I was.

"Come on-" pulling her out of the cage I picked her up in my arms "-it's not so bad is it?" I asked her as I walked across the room and sat the both of us down on the couch, putting my feet up and stretching out as I convinced her to lay down on my lap so the both of us could unwind a little.

It had been a long day.

Quickly settling down she curled up on my chest, purring deeply and kneading my stomach as her eyes shut. She was the only thing in my apartment I'd gotten in the divorce that I didn't already own.

Jared had never wanted Buffy in the first place, he liked to pretend we couldn't have her because he was allergic to cats. An excuse he tried to keep in place even when I made it clear that her lack of fur made it nearly impossible.  
It was only my consistent whining about the cat I'd never had as a child that made him begrudgingly buy her for me as a birthday present.

He'd been only too happy to greet me the day of signing the divorce papers with her in a cage and stacked on the pile of my things that had been pushed out the front door. It wasn't until then that I found out the exact terms of our original marriage contract.

I was to get none of the money, property, furniture, personal items obtained from any time after commencement of the marriage or children born of it should I file for divorce without preexisting proof of extensive adultery or domestic abuse.  
Basically, I didn't get to walk away with anything unless he had been railing his secretary for the last year or beating me black and blue every night. I wasn't allowed to simply decide I had fallen out of love with him.

Worse yet he'd frozen all the assets the second the big D-word finally came to play and I couldn't have afforded an even half decent lawyer if I sold everything I owned and my cat. Not to mention even if someone were to have given me a couple of grand no lawyer I could find on short notice was going to be half as ruthless or calculating as Cole Albertson.

I should have known something was up when Jared insisted on his father write up the marital contract. But I'd stupidly ignored my mother and convinced myself it just meant we were being an even closer-knit couple having his father write something so personal for us.

' _In truth, I was just getting silently and politely fucked over_.'

He'd so quickly destroyed whatever life we could have both walked away with. It didn't feel like we'd officially split up, it felt like I'd taken off the wedding ring, set it down on the kitchen counter and walked out of a house I'd been only staying at for the last four years.   
Like I was playing some princess at Disneyworld then I finally went home, wiped off the makeup and went to bed.

Jared hadn't wanted me to walk away with closure, he'd wanted me to come back begging for the good life we used to have. The one where I worked nearly every single night and still made sure he had breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table as if I was his mother.

I'd been happy only a few months ago, truly happy.  Then like a mirror shattering on the floor, the sensation was suddenly gone one morning.

I barely had a husband, he was at work or university or out with his friends all the time. I was out late at work most nights, sleeping in every morning because I was exhausted or sitting around the house with no one to talk to.  
We had practically nothing to do with one another with the exception of the events when we both altered our schedules to make sure we were able to make an appearance as a couple at some work or family dinner. Occasionally we were really lucky and we might both end up in the same bed and not so tired that we would be able to have sex before collapsing on top of one another.

' _What I had wasn't happy, I wasn't in a marriage, I was in purgatory and it took me four years to realize it. Then I was punished for waking up_.'

Setting my jaw and refusing to cry about what I knew had to be a good thing I stroked Buffy, making her open her yellow eyes into small slits and gaze at me with pleasure as she kept purring.

At the very least he didn't keep her to spite me.   
Considering everything else he chose to keep it wouldn't have been much of a surprise.  
My collection of vintage hardbacks and paperbacks, my typewriter collection, the art pieces I purchased with my own money at the MET gala, the car. I don't think I'd ever hated anyone in my life so much until now.

If not for the loan from my mom and the General I wouldn't have even been able to afford the cheap Astoria apartment I was standing in. At least not without going without food for the next two weeks so I'd have enough in my savings account to pay the deposit and bond.   
The fact that the place also came furnished was sheer luck, especially considering I had a whole bunch of junk I took when I moved out of my parent's house and in with Jared that now followed me to my single life and I had no shelves to put any of it on.

As if thinking about them alone had the power to summon them I felt the phone in my pocket begin to vibrate. The sound of the ringing startling Buffy more than me she suddenly jumped up and ran to the other side of the apartment, disappearing beneath a frayed armchair, waiting for me to come find her and drag her out when feed time finally rolled around.

Sighing I sat up and repositioned myself the right way, my boots clunking as they both hit the floor at the same time. Reaching into my pocket and pulling the iPhone out I hit answer, bringing the screen up to my ear in time to hear my mother's high and excitable voice drill it's way into my brain.

"Teddy, my baby, how are you? Are you in your apartment yet? Did you have any trouble getting in? Are the neighbors friendly? There are no...odd ones, are there? Did you make sure to get a handyman booked to put locks on the door and windows?" Her voice was everything that made me thing about my childhood, all at once. The sweltering Nevada heat, hugs so tight you almost couldn't breathe, falling asleep in the car looking at the Las Vegas lights, glitter from her showgirl costumes being in and on everything.

Taking a deep breath I prepared myself to answer each question quickly and concisely, knowing my mother well enough to know I could be stuck on the phone with her for the next four hours if I wasn't careful. "Hi to you too Mom. As okay as I can be considering my life was just blown to smithereens. Yes. No. Haven't talked to them yet. It's Astoria, they're all going to be weird in one way or another and he'll be arriving tomorrow to install deadbolts and locks on everything."

"Aw listen to you, my little trooper. It's okay to be upset, we all loved Jared, we know you did too."

"I'm not upset because of Jared, Mom, you know it's-" Stopping myself mid-sentence I redirected the conversation, as fast as I could before it hit dangerous emotional territory. "I don't want to talk about it right now. I'm trying to focus on the positive. I need to get this promotion, fill up my savings, pay you and Randall back and find anywhere else but here to live. I'll cry about everything afterward."

On the other end of the phone I could hear my mother sigh in symphony as if I was some hero for going through a divorce. "You're so strong but I want you to know if you need to come home to rest and recover for a while you're welcome anytime you like. Even that cat-thing of yours is more than welcome." I'd had Buffy for five years and Mom still couldn't get used to my pet.

"Buffy is a purebred sphynx!" I told her, raising my voice slightly before I sat back on the couch, closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. "I just really need time to myself. I'm feeling kind of lost and coming back to the apartment and living with you and the General and Gabbie, it's not what I want." You didn't move out of a home you loved the second you turned sixteen if you had the option of staying.

' _I now realize half the reason I wanted to be with Jared so much was because he was an escape. His family was perfect. His life was perfect. I wanted that_...'

Determined not to take no for an answer, Mom continued to insist. "Maybe that's why you need to come home. We haven't had your pretty face around here for breakfast for nearly five years. You and I can go to the salon, get our hair styled real pretty, talk all about art and I'm sure Gabbie would love some direction from such a wonderful role-model as her big sister." Hearing the sound of the General's news program playing on the tv, the range hood whirring loudly enough to let me know Mom must have been in the kitchen and my youngest sister's voice as she had her own conversation on her cell reminded me exactly why I didn't want to be there. Reinforcing my determination to do whatever it took to make sure I never had to go back there

"Mom, I have work in seven hours and I've barely had any sleep in the last two days. Can I call you back later?" Even when I was at my lowest tolerance for human behavior I saved my reserves for my mother. And it felt like I was holding on to niceties by my fingernails.

"Sure thing, you take good care of yourself. Have a nice bubble bath, paint your nails, get some sleep. You'll feel like a new woman when you wake up. Take care, baby."

Hitting the end call button I lay back down on the couch, covering my eyes with the back of my arm and wishing for the sweet release of death. Somehow talking to my mother was almost as draining as the move and with her offer to move back home echoing in my head I couldn't help but shudder at the thought of how it would be having to wake up there every morning.  
It's way closer to work than I am at the moment but I think I'd rather live in a cardboard box before I break enough to drag my sorry ass back to Park Avenue.

' _I was a hopeless sad sack but at least I was an independent hopeless sad sack_.'

No longer having it talk to my mother I could feel myself start to relax into the grooves of the couch, the thin pillows letting the wooden supports holding the couch together dig into my back but I was too tired to move.

It hadn't been a lie when I told my mom that I had barely slept in two days. Since Jared and I had first mentioned divorce the last week had been near literal Hell and as with Jared locking me out of the apartment as soon as I walked out I was desperate to find somewhere new to live.  
I'd been sleeping in cheap hotels for the last for days and it had drained nearly everything I had left in my bank account.

I'd only seen the apartment in a newspaper ad yesterday.  
To be technical I probably hadn't slept in forty hours.

Even with the metal bar forcing me to shape myself around it and not the other way around I barely had enough energy to roll over. Yet alone drag myself into the bedroom to pass out on the mattress I hadn't made up as a bed yet.

Just a little nap...


	4. then the light went out

Rubbing my neck and sipping my black coffee I stared blankly ahead of me, at the tv without processing any of the images on it. I was regretting spending the last six hours zonked out on the couch like a coma patient. I don't think I'd fallen asleep on such a tiny, cramped space in my entire life.

There was a kink in my neck for sure and if I was any older I might have wondered if I threw my back out. As it turned out, lower income housing did not suit me well. Totally unexpected.

Another mouthful of bitter coffee flowed into my mouth and I scowled. It wasn't as good as what I was used to, I was usually the kind of person who brought my own thermos of coffee from home. That way I didn't have to share, I also didn't have to get an elevator up two floors to get to the staff room for one little mug of shitty coffee.

So I parked myself on their couch with the coffee jug in from of me, pouring myself community kitchen french vanilla Coffee Mate and brandy from a stowaway flask in my jacket pocket in somewhat unequal proportions. I never knew this place was so empty at twelve at night until now.

I'd only been at work for two hours and already my eyes were beginning to grow tired of programming information into the system. I'd been working for so long without a raise or a promotion that I was starting to resent my job, it just made me hate having to come in every day.

I wanted to be promoted to curator and nowadays with the modifications I'd made to the museum systems it was a piece of cake to make sure every single piece of art came and went from the loading dock without fear or fault. It wouldn't be hard for me to manage both jobs and get twice the paycheck, it would be a dream. Well as much of a dream as I could get while still putting my degree in art history to any good use.

I knew it had been a mistake taking the course but a year in and Jared's family had already gotten me an in at the Museum of Natural History and it was the best I could ever hope for. So I followed it the rest of the way through and clung to my work like it was my best and only friend, for nearly as long as my marriage, and everyone knew I gave it twice as much effort.

The sound of the reporters nasally voice hurting my ears I focused back in on the news, yawning and adding more Coffee Mate to my mug.  
"However the gas leak was quickly fixed and the possibly fatal explosion was averted thanks to New York's hero in red and gold, Iron Man, only recently revealed as the Stark Industries prodigal son Tony Stark."

I rolled my eyes, as the report continued. Nowadays that sorta things was small fry and it was obvious the channel was grasping at straws. Iron Man was always in the news, and it was always about how he'd done something amazing and heroic, and they always had to mention how it was Tony Stark. The news was old by nine months. Move on already.

' _I figured, give enough money to anyone and I bet they would be able to build themselves a flying suit. Justin Hammer had been able to pull it off. It's just a suit made out of cash._ '

Besides, I didn't understand the reason behind him stepping forward in the first place, I never would. If I had the same money and comfort as Tony Stark, I'd let someone else head the company for me, marry happily and relax so much I died young. From what the papers said of his father Howard Stark had chosen work over family, it clearly hadn't paid off.

What a waste of a great position.

I added more brandy to the coffee and took a sip. I'm pretty sure I'd nearly curdled it by this point.

Losing interest in what had become more or less a repeat of last weeks news I got up from the couch and drained the last dregs from my mug before dropping it in the kitchen sink and making my way back to my headquarters in the basement.

I was almost shaking from the amount of caffeine in my body as I walked down the hallway and found the elevators, my eyes quickly adjusting to the dimness that greeted me.  
Despite my many notes to the museum director Francis Dupont, he hadn't gotten the halogen lights changed so I could see when I went in and out of the archives. The director was a not-so lowkey misogynist, sexist and racist with all the old-timey values wrapped up in a pseudo hot professor package.

He'd only come to join the museum earlier in the year, just it time for my divorce and he had made sure to make my working life Hell. For the first week, I'd admired him. He studied eight years at Columbia and taught for ten at Browne. Before I'd attended of course and specialized in first-century art and relics, the same as me.

_'Then one day he called me into his office, came around to my side of the desk, slapped my ass and said he liked his berries brown. It was charming, to say the least._ '

It had taken everyone in me to not slap him on the spot, instead, I calmly told him I was married and not interested in having interpersonal relationships in the workplace.

Since then I'd either gotten so much work I had to skip sleep to be able to catch up or so little I felt like I wasn't even working at the museum anymore. Then when my equipment naturally required upgrading or repairs I found that mine needs went at the bottom of the list, regardless of how important it was. He would have literally rather put the museum operations behind date than buy me a new computer to log the arrivals and departures.

I'd been working here twice as long as him and I worked in a basement and my life was rubbish, something was amiss.

Finally reaching my hidden nook under one of New York's biggest and most infamous museums I could feel myself start to relax and I took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of the formaldehyde, paint thinners, lacquers and every nick-nack needed to get the art looking perfect. By day most of the place's researchers took up the space, exhuming coffins, cleaning paintings...dusting off the taxidermy. To be honest I didn't pay their jobs much mind.  
But by night, it was mine all, mine.

Resuming my earlier work I hummed a tv jingle to myself as I pulled a pair of rubber gloves onto my hands and approached my workbench.

Losing myself in my work I began unboxing an arrival from a museum in Italy, cutting the tape with a box cutter and pulling a pair of Byzantine earrings out of the package. They were gold and covered in colored chips off precious gems, genuine rubies, emerald and sapphires dangling from gold straps from the giant hoops. Pretty.

Wrapping them in a lint-free cloth and putting them into a Byzantine box which had arrived only a few weeks earlier that Dupont wanted them displayed in. Once I was done I put it in an even larger cardboard box, marked the side with all the relevant information and slid it onto the shelf of filed arrivals before heading over to my computer at the far end of my workbench.

Pulling the gloves off and throwing them in a trash bin I opened a file for the earrings on the computer screen, my fingers flying across the keyboard as I quickly logged the information.

It went on like that for next hour, sorting through copious amounts of jewelry sent over for our upcoming Byzantine Exhibition. Open the packaging, inspect the piece, put it away for pickup tomorrow by the curators and log it.

I was yawning as I worked but my mind felt gloriously numb as I went through the motions, giving me sweet relief from more thinking. It was like going to work any other night, it was simply a quiet room where I could relax and lose my grasp on the world around me for a few hours every day.

Open the packaging, inspect the piece, put it away and log it.

Much of it was the same, crescent moons encrusted with gem flakes, soft gold oval disks engraved with pretty patterns and dripping with strands of beaded gold. Necklaces with fat chunks of mother of pearl, emeralds, sapphires and broken joining clasps. Most of them weren't good for wear anymore but the public would enjoy looking at them when they went out on display next month.

Open the packaging, inspect the piece,  _your life is over_ , put it away and log it.  
Open the packaging,  _everything you loved is gone_ , inspect the piece,  _do you even know what you want anymore_ , put it away and log it.  
_Do you even know who_ ** _you_** _are anymore?_

Open the packaging.  _You let it get taken because you didn't fight for it_. Inspect the piece.  _Not hard enough to merit any respect from Jared or his family or the General, even sixteen-year-old Gabbie would think you're being weak_. Put it away.  _The strongest thing you ever did was walking out on the best thing that ever happened to you_. And log it.

I didn't realize my hands were shaking until I looked down at them hovering above the keyboard like a pianist about to complete the finale of their great sonata, trembling in response to the thoughts echoing through my head.

_No, not here, not at work. This is supposed to be my safe place._

Lowering my hands and bracing them against the bench I stopped to close my eyes and take a deep breath, it was getting harder and harder to come to terms with this already. I'd been impulsive for as long as I could remember, Mom always liked to joke about how I preferred to seize the day and regret my mistakes so far down the line they couldn't have possibly been rectified.  
I thought I was sure that I wanted this, that I wanted a new life, without Jared, without trying to convince my own husband to take an hour or two off work each week so we could eat a fucking meal together.

' _I thought to marry while young to someone as handsome and rich and wonderful as Jared was going to be like a Cinderella dream._ '

Forcing the thoughts out of my head and focusing on what had to be done for me to earn my paycheck and survive another week I put the final piece of jewelry away on the new inventory shelves, behind a wire covered cage under lock and key.

Finally done with the Byzantine pieces I moved on the final item in inventory. A large urn sealed shut to prevent anyone from opening it and inspecting the contents.  
It had come over from Sweden, apparently, it had been displayed in one of the museums over there but lack of interest in the piece had landed it over here. Dupont had been trying to get a hold of the item for years now.

And I only wanted to throw it on the floor.

Daydreaming of just how I would brutalize my boss I pulled the urn almost half the size of my body off the shelf, surprised by its heft as I carried it back over to my work spot and put it down.   
The piece was considered highly unusual, simply for the fact that Viking's didn't have a history of keeping their ashes, preferring to burn the bodies on pillars or in longboats and leaving the ashes to scatter to the wind.

I crouched down, looking at the piece and examining the markings on the sides. There were runes, written across as if they would form complete verses and I swore under my breath at myself for being too lazy to learn how to read them. At the very least I could tell the piece would be dating back to perhaps around nine-hundred BC.

The urn was almost square, two sides depicting a sun and moon and another two a star and what I was sure was meant to be a blackhole. The painted colors of the ceramic used to form it had faded over the years, the bulk of it what might have once been dark green and orange turned to the color of grass stains and rust.

I had to admit, it was surprisingly pretty in its own way. Which was really saying something considering that we'd concluded despite the seamless design of the urn it actually contained a body. Even then, I'd have it in my house, it definitely matched my aesthetic, or at least the one I used to be able to afford.  
It wasn't too grubby, all it needed was a bit off a clean up to clear off the dust that had built up while it was in storage.

Kneeling down I searched through the box of tools beneath the bench, attempting to find the micro duster and a polishing cloth amidst the mess that had been made of the cleaning equipment. Money says they had a bunch of interns in here today. They always liked looking through the artifacts and the tools used on them. I'd know, I went through everything in this room on my first day.

Righting myself and putting the box of tools beside the urn I reached out to pick up a brush when I felt something brush the back of my hand. Only faintly at first like a tickle, you could easily ignore it, then it all became all too familiar.  
Walking through the woods at summer camp during night time.

Looking down at my arm I saw it. A spider. Big dark brown and furry, the stuff nightmares were made of, clinging to my wrist and the second I moved my arm it desperately ran up, climbing me like a tree. Immediately panic took hold, and like whenever any sensible person saw a spider, logic quickly went out the window.

"Off! Get off!" I was shrieking, trying to brush it off but whenever I tried to flick it away I had to touch it. Instead, I flicked my wrist, hoping it would fly off into some distant oblivion and I could feel the spider let go.

' _I could also feel my hand hit the urn._ '

The panic breaking as soon as I knew for sure the spider was gone I was able to focus on the urn, just in time to see it wobble and tilt. Being the one person at the museum specifically making sure it arrived in the same condition it left the first museum in I knew how much the urn cost.  
Every cent that went into the transport, the packaging, the security, art transportation fees, freighting, not to mention the actual worth of the urn was worth more than if I were to sell all my organs.

Desperate to grab it before it tilted all the way and hit the ground I lunged forward at the same moment the urn began to break contact with the bench. It hit my body at the same time my arms wrapped around it and hardly prepared to take its weight my grip immediately began to slip.

_Crash!_

It hit the floor with the kind of sound that made my soul cringe.

Dust and ash exploded in my face like someone emptied the bagless tank from a vacuum cleaner over my body and I coughed, instantly choking the second I made the mistake of inhaling the ash. It was all over me, on my face, my body, in my eyes and nostrils. I could feel the ash permeating my shirt and my mistake in screaming had gotten some in my mouth.

Oh God, oh God, it's all over me.

I slowly sat up, some of the ash falling off me and I sneezed, causing more to puff into the air in front of me. As I looked around the disaster zone where I sat I could no longer see the spider that has scared the bejesus out of me but I could see smashed urn everywhere and the thousand-year-old ashes of a Viking were scattered over the floor in a way that made me think it might look like a snow angel where I was laying if I stood up.

While the urn might have insurance, my job at the museum definitely didn't and there was no way Dupont was going to keep me on after destroying his favorite new arrival. If he wasn't willing to give me a promotion after three years of hard work and upgrading all the computing systems in the museum to the point that no other art, history or curio centre in the country could hold a candle to it then he was definitely going to garbage can my ass for smashing one of his favorite pieces

"Shit." I was going to lose my job, get a bad reference, I'd lose my apartment. "Shit!" I'd never had a snowflake's chance in Hell at scraping together enough money to countersue Jared. "Shit!"

I could feel myself beginning to hyperventilate as I looked at the mess around me. This was bad, this was really bad. I couldn't afford to lose my job. Oh fuck, oh God, this was bad. So bad.  
The air around me became thinner, my vision beginning to pulse with darkness and I put my hand on my diaphragm, trying to force myself to breathe.

The world was spinning and the air wasn't coming.  
It's like I only had ashes in my lungs.

Then everything went black.

 


	5. good morning, good morning to you

My head felt like it was stuffed with cobwebs as I woke up and my mouth tasted like wood shavings, gritty, and I quickly sat up, spitting onto the floor as I remembered last night, knowing exactly what it would be in my mouth and knowing it wouldn't leave.

The moment I opened my eyes I was almost blinded, the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling glaringly bright and I had to take a moment to let my eyes adjust. In the distance I could hear the sound of metal shutters moving, the song of the opening museum and I felt my heart jump into my throat as I realized how long I must have been out.

How bad must the panic have been? I must have been out of it for at least a couple of hours for the museum to be opening. Did the Vikings mix some wild shit in with the ashes? This is certainly something I didn't see taking off in the party circuit.

"Miss Stone, just what on Earth are you doing?" I flinched as I heard Dupont's grating voice coming at me like a knife and for a moment I felt like I was back in elementary. Jumping to my feet and dusting off my ash-covered hands on my jeans I felt my heart racing and my body involuntarily shaking. I couldn't afford to lose this job, not now, not today. "What have you done to urn? Oh God, and the remains? It's all over you! I can't believe that you would even think of allowing this to happen and is that a flask I see?"

Following his accusing glare, I could see it, my flask had fallen out of my jacket when I passed out and stopping myself from grabbing it mid-stoop I quickly straightened and brushed the ashes from my face. "It was a complete accident Professor Dupont, I promise you."

His face was slowly turning vermillion despite the calm expression. I knew it was already going downhill. "It was a mistake because you were drinking on the job you mean?" His voice showcased barely contained rage and whether it was because he was waiting for me to give him a chance to explode or because he was just building up to it.

"Please, please I need this job. You can't fire me, take deduct interest from my check but don't fire me. I need the money, please." For the first time in my life, I was begging someone for something and I absolutely hated myself for it. But I hated Dupont even more for putting me in the position in the first place.

There was no mercy on the museum directors face  
"Fire you? Fire you? I'm not just going to fire you. I'm going to make sure you'll be lucky if you can find yourself a place giving tours in Europe at a condom museum! Collect your things and leave! And considering the price of the artifact...forget about your paycheck." The words were final and despite the hardened mask on my face, I could feel my heart sink. This was the worst thing that could have happened.

Rage took control of my first words. "You asshole!"

"I'll call security to escort you out." Slamming the door shut behind him as if he intended to lock me in there Stolk marched away, leaving me standing in the middle of the archives, arms crossed over my chest and my jaw clenched so tightly my rear molars were starting to hurt.

Sniffing back the threat of tears I looked down at the shattered pieces on the floor and the piles of ash forming my passed out silhouette and groaned to myself. I'd done all this because of a spider, a goddamned spider got me fired.

If I didn't get a job soon I wasn't going to be able to afford my apartment, or my bills or food to my in my stomach...and Buffy was just going to have to forget about her picky diet...  
Heh.

"Things were supposed to be better this way." My eyes started to sting and telling myself it was just the ash residue I wiped my eyes roughly with the back of my hand, sniffling one more time.

' _I pushed the self-pity down deep. I didn't have the time to let it run my life. So what, I lost a job working for the biggest asshole in the world. There'd be other jobs, there's be other douchey pricks who wore tweed blazers in the peak of Summer. Maybe they'd pay less and maybe I'd have to fight harder but it couldn't have been any worse than losing everything to Jared._ '

My eyes still staring blankly at the floor, somewhere amongst the broken pieces of ceramic and piles of ash my eyes caught sight of a stone, it looked dull and faded, almost the same color as the ash but there had been a shape carved into it I didn't recognize, something like a broken stave, or a broken sun. Reaching down amongst the ash I retrieved it and was almost surprised what a chain came with it, nearly melted from heat and blacked from fire but still intact.

I'd checked the records to make sure everything was there and undamaged before arrival. There was never any mention of the urn containing a necklace, only ashes. It wasn't on the record.

' _I wanted to take it. Just to spite him, my final act as the Museum of Natural History archivist. If nobody had seen it before suddenly finding it would have changed the whole perspective we had previously held about the urn._ '

_You know what, maybe Franc doesn't deserve to have a look at this. After all, if he was that bloody interested in it then he would have cleaned the fucking thing himself._

I shoved the necklace into my jeans pocket and pulled off my lab coat, dropping it on a clear spot on the bench before grabbing my bag that I dumped beside it. I didn't even get to do the walk of shame with my pathetic crate of desk momentous. Because they never gave me a desk.

The door opened just as I reached for it, two of the daytime security guards stepping in, Ed and Jackson, neither of which I knew was going to bother grabbing me and I wasn't surprised to receive a look that said 'sucks to be you' from the both of them as they stepped aside and allowed me to pass.

Despite his earlier storm off, much to my delight Dupont was still in the hallway.

' _He'd waited for the security guards to march me out because he wanted to make a big deal out of it. Maybe he was hoping for a screaming match._ '

I smirked as I walked past him, Ed and Jackson hanging back and reluctant to get involved. Half the staff and the museum wanted to see Dupont take a long walk off a short pier and it wasn't anything unexpected when they ignored his orders to follow me out, knowing I'd be more than glad to escort myself.

As I passed him a Dupont stepped towards me and I slowed making a side-step to avoid him before keeping on going. "I couldn't possibly imagine why you were ever hired. Impudent, tardy, lazy and your dress is completely provocative!" He kept shouting at me like a madman as I walked away, trying to say something that would hit a nerve, make me react. Just like those bitches in Chapin.

Instead, I simply ignored him. Keeping my gaze focused straight ahead of me and stepping into the elevator without so much as a word.  
And as they began to slide shut I held my hand out, middle finger up, eyes narrowed, my final gesture.

Dupont couldn't have possibly missed it.  
"Putain de chienne, fille d'un-"

I could still hear him screaming behind the metal doors as the elevator ascended.

\---

'The...ving at pla...ive minutes. T...Astoria...ten minutes..."

Despite having slept for at least four hours I was dead tired and nearly falling asleep on my feet as I waited for the fifty-ninth street train to Astoria.

All around me businessmen and women were milling around, waiting for their connections to their locations all across the city. Phones were wringing left and right and the number of people on their phones filled the station and packed platform with a low hum.

Soon after walking out of the museum I felt myself slip into a numb state. There was nothing I could do about this except push on through, no crying or screaming, just like the divorce. Of course, that also meant I had no idea where I was supposed to get a job that wouldn't require a reference from my boss of nearly years. Not one that was going to allow me to singlehandedly keep ahold of my apartment.

There was always the easier roommate possibility but I hated the thought of some stranger being able to walk to through my house.

Things were not going my way.  
_So much for a leap of faith_.

Trying to occupy my mind and thoughts I reached into my jeans pocket to retrieve the necklace I'd found on the ash-covered floor of the archives. The chain was rough when I wrapped it around my fingers but nothing had changed about its appearance that wasn't already there twenty minutes ago.  
Despite my understanding of history, I had no chance of guessing how much the necklace might have been worth. Maybe hundred thousand, could be more or less.

I turned it back and forth in my hand, trying to make it hit some kind of light that would make it special. It was ugly by most counts. Just a misshapen lump of rock wrapped and tied up in a piece of chain that made possible to hang it around your neck.  
Granted I'd also seen labels charge a thousand for something similar and get away with it by calling it high fashion.

I wonder what the person who had this and ended up in the urn must have been like. From ashes, I doubted researchers would be able to even tell the gender.

Sighing and taking my shitty consolation prize for ruining my life with my loyalty to work I found the clasp on the necklace, a simple toggle that luckily hadn't been ruined with rust, and closed it around my neck.

As my arms dropped back down by my side I heard the warning beep of the coming train, not even mine and I already wanted to go lie down on a bench somewhere nearby.

' _Even knowing it wasn't going to take long to get home. I couldn't help but think. Why bother rushing back to a home you can't afford? To a cat you won't be able to feed or a power bill you're not going to be able to pay when it arrives next week?_ '

As I heard the train get closer the suits with briefcases and sensible shoes began to get rowdier, hurrying to get to their delightful jobs at work. Or at the very least the secretary they liked to sexually harass.

Trying to move out of everyone's way while I waited for my train, I slid my hands into my pockets and began to move down the platform. I'd barely made it a couple of steps before some ignoramus bumped into me hard enough to make me stumble before regaining my footing and I spun around cursing at a stranger's back as they retreated into the crowd.

The train let out another blast, signaling its impending arrival.

Another suit barged past me on their way to command pole position the moment they stepped onto the train, clipping my shoulder and making me stumble once more.  
My brain sapped of energy to care I thought nothing of it and simply shuffled my feet to regain my footing.

Then there was suddenly no ground beneath me.

My hands flying into the air to windmill as if it might help me or slow my fall it was only a second before I hit the ground again. Yet the screaming around me somehow hinted that I hadn't landed on the platform.

Opening my eyes I immediately realized I was lying on the subway tracks and a nearly crippling rush of panic overtook my body. It was lower down than I'd realized, much lower. I hadn't gone to the gym in three years and my job revolved around dusting, writing things down and making phone calls. I couldn't jump back up there on my own.

' _I realized it then and there. Standing on the tracks, looking up at the suits busy ignoring what was happening, screaming or pulling out their phones. I was about to die._ '

As I turned my head I could see the front of the train, an angle I'd never expected or wanted to see even in my wildest dreams. It was going too fast to see me and I was standing so close that I wouldn't have mattered anyway. I would have taken so long to slow down I was as good as ground meat.

Everything slowed down like I was stuck in a Salvador Dali painting and suddenly, I could process everything around me. The desperate honks of the train driver telling me to get off the tracks as if I'd wanted to be down there in the first place. The shrill screams of the useless bystanders as they spent more time expressing their shock and horror than helping me. I could even hear my heart racing in my ears.

Then the train that was a yard away was only a meter, then a foot.  
Then I could see the scratches and dings from other things it had hit on the grill.  
I closed my eyes.

My body felt as if it were weightless, no longer touching the ground and behind my lids, I saw stars, spreading out in every direction with nothing to break the horizon.

There was no moon or sun, no day and night. Just balls of light and distant asteroids and planets whirled together with only the sort of colors a mad scientist could create swirled together like an art experiment.

There was no sound, no faint rush of the wind blowing or the distant sound of cars or voices. The screams of the commuters seemed so far away and such a long time ago I could barely recall what they sounded like. I didn't want to.  
The silence was peaceful.

 _I could stay here_.

Then as soon as I thought it I could feel myself falling again, falling, falling, falling. Like riding straight down a waterslide but only being carried by air. It was exhilarating but not enough to make me not fear whatever was at the end.

Hitting the ground with the velocity one might gain jumping from the sidewalk into the gutter I could feel hard ground beneath me again and even with how sure I was of my footing I still stumbled.

For every second I had been weightless it now felt like everything from my hips up were made out of lead and trying to drag me towards the ground. My head swam with vertigo as I forced my eyes open, throwing my arms in a pitiful attempt to catch myself by grabbing whatever or whoever I could.

But just like the first time I fell, there was nothing to grab and I hit wood with a loud thud that sent a shot of pain through my head. It felt like someone was trying to split it in half with an axe.

I didn't want to move. I couldn't.

My head hurt so much I only wanted to curl up into a ball. I'd had migraines before, but this was insane. Every part of my head hurt, from the back of my eyes to the base of my skull, like it was being split in half from inside out.  
Clenching my eyes shut and trying to shut out the pain I pressed my face against the cool wooden floor, hoping the cold would act as some sort of relief.

My mind was in a clothes dryer, tumbling around and around. I was on the floor and I couldn't tell up from down. It was a jumble. The floor echoed the heartbeat in my ears and my stomach responded to the agony in my head by churning with nausea. I was barely holding on to the world around me.

 _All you have to do is let go_ , said a small voice in the back of my head.  
So I did.


	6. -Benson, T. ID:17891, Session 1, Recording 2, DATE: 24/05/2012-

 "It really hurt too. I always thought you blacked out before you hit he ground but I felt the whole thing." As she stopped talking Teddy smiled, noticing that Tony was practically frozen on the other side of the table. Just that caught up in her story. "...but I suppose you'd know that wouldn't you? It's gotta suck falling from a hole in the sky." Her sarcasm successfully breaking the quiet in the room he straightened his back and took a sip of his coffee before glancing down at the pad in his hand and clearing his throat.

"Gotta admit, didn't see that coming but I mean it makes more sense-" Tony stopped mid-sentence as his eyes scanned the words on the screen, an expression of thinly veiled glee alighting on his face. "You know, they just sent me all your files, I had a quick glance, and I've got to say...wow." The smile Teddy so proudly wore quickly died. "You really decided to dive into the deep end, didn't you? All A pluses, quiet in class, captain of the debate team, sophomore class president..." She made a grumbling sound and he read list after list of extracurricular activists and academic awards and by the time he'd finished she was slunk a few inches lower in her chair. "Oh my, and is this a four-year running captain of the mathletes I have before me?" Tony sounded like he'd hit the gold mine, his face lighting up with amusement. "But only two years of private school. Tell me, how does that work?"

If it had been possible the air radiating from Teddy would have been ice cold. The mixture of mockery and amusement in Tony's voice doing little to loosen her tongue. She already knew her school records didn't exactly make her look like a badass.  
"I started competing on a secondary level while I was in middle school."

While the records might have been embarrassing she couldn't deny that they had gotten her to the place she received her powers in the first place. She wouldn't have gotten anywhere if she hadn't been the nerd she was. And Teddy had to concede, her knack for numbers had ended up being indispensable more than once.

"Then you were admitted into Princeton at seventeen under special consideration, you're an ivy leaguer as well? You're smarter than you like let on aren't you?"

She didn't reply this time. Instead leaving the question to hang in the air.  
She was growing tired of being asked about her life. It had nothing to do with what she was here for and if anything he was just trying to make fun of her for being a former goody two shoes.

When she didn't reply Tony moved his eyes back to the tablet and he made a few gestured on the screen talking as he read her files, "So how did someone so smart end up married so young? I mean, I have a rough idea, according to this at sixteen you were admitted to Manhatten Hospital-" Suddenly the chair disappeared from beneath Tony and like a sack of potatoes he went sprawling on the ground, his tablet gone along with him and with a clatter ten metal chair he had been using appeared on the other side of the room, rocking back and forth before collapsing on its side.

"Damn, I didn't know you could do that," he muttered just loud enough to be heard and he slowly climbed back to his feet, groaning and swearing under his breath with each movement. The aches and pains from the battle only days earlier not quite yet forgotten.

The only sign that Teddy had been responsible was the thin trail of blood escaping her nose. Without her pendant it had been a strain to simply move the chair but the surprise on his face had been worth it and she determinedly kept her head up, refusing to wince at the throbbing pain blossoming behind her eyes.

Forcing her infamous grin back on her face she smiled through the headache, coping with the pain by clutching both hands into fists so tight her nails cut into her scarred palms. "I'm full of surprises." Wiping away the blood around her nose on her sleeve and she sat up at the table a little straighter, making it clear that she didn't take this as a joke. "I don't like talking about Jared, he has nothing to do with what happened."

Simply speaking about him made her want to roll her eyes. As if Jared was capable of doing anything. He was a daddy's boy. He had his father run his life, he was going to take over the family business when he retired. He and Teddy hadn't even gone public until she'd had dinner at his family's house and he got the all clear from his parents.

The only way he'd ever destroy New York would be politically and financially.

"Fair enough," Tony muttered as he walked across the room to retrieve his chair, dragging it across the cement with a long scraping sound before placing it back in front of the table. "You know I told them to bolt to chairs to the ground in case you did something along those lines. They said they did. Looks like somebody lied."

The most Teddy did was scoff but there was a genuine tinge of amusement there in her eyes. "A few bolts wouldn't have made a difference."

"Good to know," Tony replied, looking over her with the first drop of weariness she had seen on his face they met. It had driven her nuts since the first time she and Iron Man crossed paths, he'd always underestimated her, taken her for a mere annoyance. "So you passed out on the living room floor, then what?" He asked next, leaning out of his chair to pick up the tablet from the ground and turning it over in his hands to check for damage as he waited for her to continue.  
Like she was some narrator for hire.

"Oh, are we done with roasting Teddy now?" Her brows furrowed in annoyance. She was getting tired of having her history thrown in her face, be it personal academic or otherwise. Already she could feel the regret tugging in her stomach.  
They knew who she was now, they knew who her family was, they knew where they lived, what they did.

Tony shrugged, "I have to get the story or neither of us are going anywhere."

The she reminded herself why she was doing this. If you make yourself sound nice enough, you can get out. Taking money was nothing compared to partnering with the man intent on taking over New York and the rest of the world.

All she had to do was distance herself from it all as much as possible.

Sliding down her chair to make herself more comfortable Teddy crossed her arms over her stomach and her legs one over the other. Her russet brown eyes focusing on the closest approximation for a corner in the entire room. "...When I woke up..."


	7. things could be worse

' _I had a headache that could make me believe God didn't exist. Not to mention it was a little hard to believe I was alive_.'

I was gasping on the living room floor, the room had turned completely dark with the exception of the streetlights shining in the uncurtained windows.  
I was hit by three things at once, the pounding ache behind my eyes, the cold of the wooden floor against my bare skin and rolling nausea in my stomach.

Barely managing to climb to my feet I stumbled through the dark towards the bathroom, nearly knocking the door down as I fell to my knees in front of the toilet. As soon as I opened my mouth nausea overwhelmed me and I emptied my stomach into the bowl.  
It was worse than any kind I'd experience before, it was like my stomach was trying to turn itself inside out.

It wasn't until I was every last drop of moisture was out of my body that I was able to collapse onto the floor once again, leaning against the wall and gasping as I attempted to catch my breath.  
The headache was still just as bad, threatening to turn into a migraine at any moment when even in the darkness I could see lights dancing in front of my eyes.

None of this makes any sense.  
The train, it was so close, I could see the scratch on the front grill.  
But I'm here.

Shivering and running my hands up and down my goosebump arms I was reminded of the fact I was butt naked and sitting on a likely filthy bathroom floor. Feeling around in the air for the porcelain sink my fingers closed around it and I dragged myself to my feet, standing in front of the mirror and only seeing the outline of my reflection in the darkness.

 _My clothes, what happened to my clothes_?

The tiny confines of the bathroom gave me little enough space to reach the other wall and turn the switch on. The fluorescent lights took a moment to catch up, flickering a few times before coming to life with a faint humming that might have driven me insane if I didn't need a white noise machine to sleep.

' _The face that greeted me was a sight to behold_.'

Between the incident at the museum and waking up on the floor of my apartment, my curls were a tangled mess and my cheeks were swollen and my eyes puffy like I'd cried myself to sleep. Despite my best attempts I hadn't managed to get rid of all the ash either and parts of it stayed in my hair, turning the dark brown nearly grey in some patches and making me resemble an old lady.  
But it was the blood I hadn't felt running out my eyes and nose that really startled me, the trails long turned dry and crusty.

How long had I looked this bad? Is this what people were seeing when I went to catch the subway home? Is that why they didn't care that much when I told them to stop pushing because I was nearly falling off the platform.

Then my eyes slowly went lower. The Viking pendant, I still had it. Everything else was gone, my bra, my underwear, my clothes. But the pendant stayed?

 _Had it somehow, saved me_?

Shuddering and what would have happened or what might have happened I tried to clear any further thoughts from my head. Instead, I turned the shower on as quickly as possible and with the water still cold and my towel packed away in a suitcase with my clothes in the other room I climbed in anyway, having to repress a scream at the cold flowing over my skin. It was like having someone pour icecubes over me.

Thankfully the water heated fast and I wasn't forced to stand there shivering for long before the stream from the shower turned warm, then hot, allowing my muscles to relax.  
Even without soap, I did the best I could to scrub my skin clean, promising I would have another shower soon and that I would soap and scrub myself raw.

' _It was harder to get over the whole covered in an ancient dead person thing than I'd anticipated_.'

Hearing the sound of the water running I heard the jingle of Buffy's collar as she came running into the bathroom to find me, meowing and walking in circles to get my attention.

"Hey sweetie," I cooed at her, reaching out of the shower to pat her with my dripping hand and letting out a clipped laugh when she ducked out from beneath it. Moving away a few paces to make sure she stayed well out of my wet reach she looked at me and began meowing again. "You hungry?" She ran out of the room, the sound of her calls echoing being her as she waited for me to hurry up.

At least it's good to know she's adjusting to this faster than I am.  
Especially considering I might not even have the money to feed her this time next week.

Having washed away what I hoped was the last of the ashes, blood and subway filth I shut off the water and walked out of the shower

Knowing already that my hair was going to be Hell to comb and style tomorrow I went straight to the living room instead. The light from the bathroom allowing me to see well enough to find my giant suitcase beside the couch and rifling through it I managed to scrounge up an old t-shirt and a pair of sweats, pulling them on without bothering to put anything on underneath.

Moving on to find the cardboard box full of books I ripped the tape off with my fingernails and started pulling novels out left, right and center.

I felt like I was losing it.

I couldn't have gotten from fifty-ninth street to Astoria without remembering it. It physically wasn't possible. I couldn't have blacked out and walked that far.  
Not to mention the train was inches from my face. For all intents and purposes, it should have hit me. I should be a red smear on the subway track interrupting everyone's morning commute.

Finding my old copy of Alice in Wonderland that I mutilated back when I was sixteen I pulled it open, almost ripping the front cover off. A ziplock bag of joints fell into my hand, likely stale now considering they'd been rolled so long ago. Luckily past Teddy had been dumb enough to leave a lighter in with my stash and I only had to flick it a couple of times before the flame caught.

The rolled paper lit immediately and I nearly choked on the smoke as it filled my lungs, sinking down to the floor where I stood then leaning my back against the box.

 _I was there, then I was here_?  
 _What did I miss in-between_?

' _Then I got a thought in my head. What if I am dead? What if none of this is real and I'm dead and everything's like this because I'm imagining it_.'

But the aching pain still in my head swore everything was very much real and I was very much alive. That couldn't have been dreamt up, it hurt too badly.

The weed was stale just like I'd predicted, but it didn't stop it from still working and as much as it hurt my brain began to grow foggy, relaxing almost against my will and I couldn't help but wonder if it'd been a smart or dumb decision.

So I'd done what then?  
Teleported myself from Manhattan to Queens?

That's when I started choking on the smoke.  
 _Had I teleported myself from Manhattan to Queens_?

"No, no, you're just being ridiculous. People can't teleport."

 _Meow_.

I looked down at Buffy, sitting beside me and trying to get my attention. A pang of guilt was able to distract me and stubbing the joint out on the hardcover of the book I got to my feet and went to the kitchen to fix her something for dinner.

 _There's gotta be some cans packed somewhere_.

Rummaging through the boxes I'd labeled kitchen it didn't take me long to come across her bowl and a tin that I quickly cracked open. Putting nearly the whole contents into the dish and leaving the tin on the bench, I put the food the floor and watched her as she came running over. Her collar jingling before she stopped short of face-planting into the meat and gravy and began to eagerly stuff her face.

Watching her I felt my stomach begin to growl, even despite throwing up less than an hour ago, I was hungry. Starving.

"Pizza it is then," I muttered to myself, reaching down to pull my phone out of my pocket and stopping when I realized it wasn't there.

My phone, my phone isn't here.

If this is fake, if I somehow didn't get killed by the train and just had a psychotic break, stripped off all my clothes then my phone has to be somewhere. At least it's got to ring for a little while.

'If I teleported then where could all my clothes have gone? My mobile? My best guess was that they'd somehow been destroyed if it really had happened.'

Hurrying over to the landline by the front door I quickly typed in my mobile number into the keypad and waited for something to happen. There was only silence for a second, then I could hear it.

 _Ring..._  
Ring...  
Ring...  
Ring...  
Rin-

"'Hi, you've reached Teddy! I'm not available to talk at the moment, leave a message at the beep.'"

 _Beep_...

"Shit," I muttered, hanging up the phone.

 _Meow_.

Listening to my cat's long and unusual wail I turned my head, just in time to see her lining up for a jump to the bench so she could eat anything left. She was such a guts sometimes. But what's worse is the mess she made when she decided to be a piggy.

"Buffy," I warned her, my voice loud enough to hear me. But like every time I commanded her not to do something, much like coming when called, she always chose to ignore me. "Buffy, no!" She lunged forward at the same time I did.

The room around me disappeared in a burst of color, my ears popping and a rush of adrenaline ran through my body, stronger than any fear I'd felt. Enough to make me feel weightless.  
Gold, I could see gold, and orange and white and blue, blue everywhere. An endless stretch, no definition or shape.

Just as quickly as it appeared it was gone the floor solid beneath me and the room fading back into clear view.

' _Everything was different. I could see the front door, the bathroom, my bedroom. Then I realized I was holding Buffy_...'

"...Meow." Buffy squirmed in my grip and I felt my eyes go wide as I realized exactly what happened. Somehow I'd caught her midair and the way she was looking at me said she wasn't pleased I'd interrupted her attempt to feast.

"Oh fuck." Trying my best to not hurt her I quickly put her down to skitter away, my hands shaking from nerves. "Oh fuck," I repeated it again as if it would somehow take the panic away.

The weed wasn't that good, I didn't black out and I couldn't move that fast by any stretch of the imagination. It was the same sort of crazy that somehow got me here from Manhattan. This was very real. I wasn't imagining things. Teleportation, it has to be teleportation then...

' _I couldn't do that before, obviously_.'

Like it was instinct I reached for the necklace hanging from my throat, my fingers closing around the pendant and feeling a faint heat emanate from deep inside it.  
The chain was somehow smoother after it'd been in the shower, even though its age paired with its condition meant it should have fallen apart as soon as I touched it.

Then again if it had been magical enough to make me teleport in the first place...  
Can it take me anywhere?

Holding the stone tightly in my palm, an unnoticed edge digging into my skin I tried again.  
I could feel it happening, the weightlessness, and no sooner than it began something invisible and intangible somehow managed to bodyslam me and pass through me all at once  
Heat flashed through me in waves and suddenly it felt like my brain was trying to escape through my ears, my heart beating so fast in my chest it was like I'd just finished the tail end of a marathon. I wanted to throw up.

"Aha!" Immediately I dropped the pendant, the stone burning so hot it felt like I had just taken a dish out of the oven with my bare hands. If not for the shirt I'd put on I was sure it would have burnt my chest and even through the cotton I could feel the heat radiating from it. I might as well have a hung a piece of red-hot coal around my neck.

 _No teleporting outside my line of sight, got it_.

Unable to keep myself standing I slumped down the wall behind me, dropping on the floor and trying to catch my breath. It had felt like nothing to go from one side of the room to the other but it downright hurt trying to teleport outside the building.  
And I'd only tried to see if I could make it to the roof.

' _Perhaps the mistake had been trying to take myself to the roof even knowing having I'd never seen it before. Then again it could have been using my powers to take myself up twenty floors after just having woken up from an eight-hour blackout_.'

Despite the amount of sleep I knew I should have had I could already feel the exhaustion beginning to take hold. My body felt heavy and I was starting to look a lot like this headache wasn't going to leave by itself.

Not gonna lie, I didn't deal with pain either. When I was a kid, I screamed when I scraped my knees, I screamed when the kids as school pulled my hair, if I cut myself while cooking, a paper cut could nearly break me down in tears. I wasn't exactly what you'd call a tough cookie.  
Eventually with enough alcohol and the assistance of some equally drunk friends to egg me on I'd gotten a few tattoos. Of course, I'd cried and whimpered the entire time.

' _But the headache was downright ungodly_.'

Getting to my knees and crawling across the floor towards the couch I managed to grab the remaining bag of shabbily rolled joints and lighter before dragging myself up onto the couch I knew I was going to regret sleeping on again.

 _Fuck the bed_.

Lying down and putting another joint between my lips I flicked the lighter, taking a slow inhale to get the paper properly lit before exhaling a lungful of smoke.

I was going to regret this tomorrow. Smoking the weed I could have sold to help refill my bank account when I had no job to make sure the rent was paid by the end of the month.  
I had no backup, no plan b. There wasn't a rainy day fund, Jared had made sure of that.

I could go live with mom and the General again.  
I barely considered it for a second before cracking up laughing, choking on smoke. I would have rather lived on the street than gone home. If I wasn't willing to finally head back to the big fancy three-storey apartment in Upper Manhattan after Jared and his asshole father ripped my life apart I wasn't going to run crying just because I lost my job.

Granted it was literally the only job I'd ever had to save for washing the dishes when it was my turn to do the chores when I was twelve.  
My mother and I got along on average. As much as any family. But despite however smart and head in the books I might have been as a kid it didn't change my nature. I liked playing practical jokes.

'... _Well, technically I suppose what I did might have been malicious. I mean I put the General's watch down the garbage disposal once, it was a family heirloom. Ended up being sent to a military camp for three months, which would have been a smart idea if every family didn't decide to ship their delinquent brat there_.'

My eyes grew heavy the more reminisced. The effect of the smoke and exhaustion combining and taking hold and I found my train of thought beginning to slow to a grinding halt.  
I was too tired to think, hell I couldn't even be bothered to drag myself to bed.

 _Here's hoping my superpowers can fix a bad back_.


End file.
